


Xaphania's After

by finch (afinch)



Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-24
Updated: 2008-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-25 07:33:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1639142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afinch/pseuds/finch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Xaphania stays with Will to create the Republic of Heaven, and finds things do not go the way she would wish.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Xaphania's After

**Author's Note:**

> I love this series. I wish I'd had more time to write this, I would have made it a lot longer. I really hope you enjoy!
> 
> Written for Fizza

 

 

Xaphania had seen hell. Over and over again she had seen hell. What bothered her the most was that mortals of all ages seemed to liken her to Lucifer- to an angel who rebelled against God and thus lived in some unhappy, firey place with chains and agony. And then they attributed the creation of humans to God! 

It was her, and her angels that had intervened! And from there, they had created humans. 

But it was the hell that was attributed to her. She'd seen hell. She wasn't anything of hell.

Chains. Firey. And then they made rules over who got to go to heaven and who was supposed to go to hell. She didn't understand the logic behind it. Wouldn't ever. 

So when she had to pick a place to stay, after the Almighty had fallen, she picked the place that needed the most help with what hell was.

"Will." She whispered it softly. 

He looked surprised to see her. "But I thought ..." his voice trailed off and he shook. 

"It's ok. We sealed the holes. Destroyed the knife," she reassured Will. 

"But then what are you doing here? I thought ..."

"Your world needs me." 

His next comment was fiesty, quick, "But what about Lyra?"

She smiled, "There are others staying there with her; she will be fine, young Will."

He was measuring her, trying to figure just how much he could push her, "Look. I lost the love of my life. I know, I'm only a kid, and that's how the people here treat me, not that I blame them, to them, I am just a kid, but you tell me. You know me. You've fought with me. What. About. Lyra?"

"She is building her own Republic, Will, as must you. With my help." 

Will didn't know. He doubted his ability, without Lyra, to build anything. "I don't know how." 

Xaphania held out her hand, "That is why I am here, young Will. To help you." 

"We can't. I don't know where to start."

Xaphania smiled, held out her hand. "Young Will. There is much I can teach you. Much you can learn. But you are right, for now you are just a small boy ina large world. Allow me to do the work while you learn. Allow me to help others."

Hesitantly, Will nodded.

She went first to the Pope. 

"Your Grace," she said to him softly. 

He knelt immediately. 

"Stand," she commanded him. "You will not kneel before me. Only before other men whom you deem it, shall one kneel." 

"Do you come in the service of our Lord?"

Xaphania didn't know how to do this; didn't know how to tell a man of incredible faith there was no Lord. She settled for meeting in the middle, and hoped eventually Will could meet her the rest of the way. "Your Grace, I am Xaphania. my Lord commands tolerance. Acceptance. Free will, and free acts. My Lord commands that faith is best served alone and that only by the living example of that faith will he see the glorious end." 

The pope trembled, "Xaphania, I am weak at heart. But if it is His will, then it shall be done." 

She vanished then, quickly, unable to bear what she had just done.

The sweeping changes weren't instituted all at once, but the world felt them. A living example of faith- what had she been thinking?

Will had words for her the next time he saw her, near ten years later.

"Living example of faith? You realise in India, China, most of Africa, they're killing those that don't convert to Christianity? Mass killings!" He was outraged, and properly so. "How am I supposed to do it? How am I supposed to do anything, when all that's there is this? This is worse than it was before, and you know it!" 

His passion was fierce and she found she could not look into his eyes. "I am sorry, Will. When this pope has died, I shall visit the next one, and-"

If he could have hit her, he would. "And what? And what? There ain't nothing you can do! Nothing! Why don't you go speak to the common man and let the pope to me?"

And only because she could not look into his eyes, did she agree. 

The common man- she'd no idea what Will had meant by that, but she approached the killers in India, smirked as they bowed before her.

"Oh, get over yourselves," she snapped. "Stop killing people. That's not living faith. Living faith would be tolerance. Feed the hungry, care for the sick, recognise that ethnic divides are just that and cannot bring any amount of security or peace as long as they are allowed to fester." 

She visited the killers in China, in parts of Africa, in the West, as well. It was a new war, and not a battle of God verses Evil, but which type of faith was better than others. Which faith was the 'true' faith.

She went to Will after. "You are right, young Will."

"I'm not so young." 

"No, you are not. But it is not up to me. It should not have been up to me. I should not have foolishly left it up to me and told you to go to school."

He nodded, sadly. "I didn't do bad, though. I'm a doctor now. I can help people in the places they need the most help. I can tell them to tell stories. And maybe I can slowly build that Republic that Lyra wants so bad. Maybe it's not about sweeping changes to a Church; maybe it's about the sweeping changes inside of a soul. Maybe it's one person at a time. I think the Republic is a personal idea, not an actual one. I don't think it could survive if it were. It ain't fair to them Xaphania. I've seen it. I've seen the real thing, but these people? They ain't. I'm not going to condemn them for believing in something. Maybe all I can do is change five people- maybe not even that. But those five, Xaphania? They're going to go change five more and then five more. And maybe this Republic isn't instant, like we want it to be, but maybe it's good. Maybe it's the best thing that it can be. For now. Maybe it won't be anything until my grandchildren have gone to the Land of the Dead and been returned to Dust. But I ain't going to sit here and be ok with you trying to make these huge changes. You're going to stay with me now, and I'm going to be a doctor, and we're going to do this my way." 

She couldn't meet his eyes, again. She could only bow her head and offer out a shimmering hand. "Then let us start, Will. One small soul at a time." 

 


End file.
